They were here

The appliance fairies came! They sneaked in - even Cujo didn't hear them. They left wonderful and brand-new things and took the ewwy, old, and nasty things.

First, a group of young ones came sometime Sunday afternoon, and they left this.


Then, first thing this morning, more of them came, and they left this.


And they left this too.


I'm not sure quite what to do. I think I need to have my security system checked. Then again, maybe not...
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OH!

The anticipation is KILLING me!!! More later...

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Life in the fast lane

I did something sort of out of character last night. I went with a friend to a singles group function. It's meetup group (meetup.com) for single/divorced people. He goes to these all the time, but I've never really done it before. We met everyone at the 55º Wine Bar in Plano - there were about a dozen people including us. Most were around my age or a little older.

There were some interesting people: The group organizer was quite nice - she seemed to have her act together, and was friendly and talkative. That's probably why she got to be the group leader. There was one man who was obviously VERY intelligent, but didn't seem to have really great social skills. He didn't really know how to carry on a conversation without extreme silliness. I know, odd combination. Another guy was still fixated on trashing his ex. He didn't act mad, but he told story after story putting her in a bad light. Like the one about how she spent $20,000 on boob jobs, or the one how her tummy tuck messed up the hummingbird tattoo she had (it was drinking out her belly button before the surgery ), and then there were the requisite jabs about her current lovelife. There was one man who was quite overweight - seemed nice enough, but let's face it: all of us are superficial to some degree. Some of the conversation topics were: garage sales, British rock musicians, jewelry, yam oil, camping, lesbians, hitchhiking, bargain shopping...

One man struck up a conversation with me toward the end of the evening, went sort of like this: Him: "Hey, I know you." Me: "I've heard THAT one before!" Him: "I know you from that karate place." Me: "You mean Sidekicks?" Him: "yeah, my kids have gone there, but my ex isn't keeping up with the lessons. She won't take them, and I'm still paying for it." (could have predicted that turn of the conversation!) Anyway, he recognized me from a belt test back in the spring when his kids tested. (I have fans!) He then started trying to impress me with tales of when he was young and did Taekwondo and had patches all over his uniform from all the tournaments, and dropped names from jiu-jitsu (Machado) and started naming off MMA schools (trying to remember the names but couldn't). I'm about 3 inches taller than him. 'Nuf said.

You might get the idea from this that I didn't have a very good time - but I did. My friend was very nice - we had a few good conversations along the way - and just getting out of the house with other adults was good. For those of us who like people watching, it was a bonanza. The fact that it was a weekday wasn't all that great, but what the heck. The kids survived, and they can see that mom needs to have friends to hang out with too. I might even do it again sometime.

Finally

I'm starting the process of updating my house! I've been wanting to do many of these fixes, oh, since I moved in to this house 6 years ago. Back then I had no money. Not like I have tons now, but I finally got back the money that my ex-business partners "borrowed" for 2 years.

Today I ordered a kitchen sink! I have a nice cast iron one, but the finish on those just doesn't hold up - it always looks dirty, unless I've just cleaned it (in the last 5 minutes). I had thought about stainless steel, but it scratches too. There was a really nice, virtually indestructible granite sink that I could order in white to match my white kitchen, so I got it. My current faucet is yellow - used to be white - so I sprung for a new one.

The sink will be here in about 2 weeks. I'll pick it up, and my boys will learn how to install a sink, drains, faucets, garbage disposals, and make it all work without spewing water everywhere.

Well, I hope they will, anyway.
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News from sick bay

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Swine flu has invaded our house. Sammi had it a couple of weeks ago, then Brad came home with it Friday morning, and I caught it Sunday night. Nick thinks he may have avoided a bad case of it - he had a very sore throat last week that never did anything more. Drew hasn't had any symptoms yet (crosses fingers). It really hasn't been as bad as you might think. For Brad and I, it started as a sore throat, then went to fever. That hovered around 100-102 for a couple of days, and then broke, and that was it. I feel better today, but sort of sore - like I worked out too hard recently - but otherwise OK.

For treatment, we took massive quantities of Vitamin C (about 2000mg/hr) and lots of Vitamin D (D3). I also took a homeopathic "virex" starting Monday mid-day. I only took Tylenol once, and Brad did once. If you kill the fever, your body can't kill the virus, so within reason, you have to have the fever. Anyway, it can be recovered from with only a little pain and discomfort.

Drew & Nick have told me that 1/4 - 1/3 of the band has been out sick this week, so it's going around school, and I don't think it's just MHS. I know that people are trying avoid it, but I almost see this the way our moms saw chicken pox when we were kids: When some kid in the neighborhood got it, you all go to their house to play so that you can get it over with as little kids. Since this is a new strain of flu, none of us have had it. The only way to develop immunity is to have exposure and develop antibodies. So you HAVE to get it. Apparently there was a similar strain going around about 50-60 years ago, and there's speculation that this is why older people aren't getting this one - they already have immunity from previous exposure.

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